


Kiss Me (On This Cold December Night)

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Multi, OT3, Other, Polyamory, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 10:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11146281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jongdae has a legitimate reason for hating Christmas. (Even if he forgets sometimes and actually answers when Baekhyun jokingly calls him the Grinch.)





	1. Please Just Fall in Love With Me This Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the story.
> 
> If you enjoy this, let me know!

SantaCon.

AKA the worst day of the year, _every_ year.

AKA the only big event in December that Jongdae bothers to circle with bright red ink on his desk calendar--because who the hell needs a written reminder for Christmas anyway? (There's New Year's Eve, obviously, and Baekhyun's birthday every December too, but Jongdae isn't really one for anticlimactic countdowns--never has been. Also, Baekhyun yaps enough about well, _everything_ , that Jongdae couldn't forget his friend's birthday even if he wanted to. Which he does want. Often.)

Jongdae's hatred for SantaCon is so legendary, in fact, that his three best friends--read: mostly just Baekhyun the devil child--call him the Grinch and joke that Jongdae hates _all_ of Christmas. Which he doesn't. What Jongdae hates are drunk people in stupid clothes clogging up the streets of _his_ city, and being a general nuisance to everyone.

"How could you not like SantaCon?" Baekhyun always seemed to wonder in the days leading up to the worst day of Jongdae's year.

Chanyeol, who always sides with his boyfriend against Jongdae anyway, then tries to convince Jongdae that the city-wide event has its merits. "It's an excuse to get drunk and not worry about looking like an idiot because everyone else is doing dumb stuff too!" Chanyeol persuades, and Jongdae thinks that of course _Chanyeol_ would like something like that.

It's an excuse to disturb the peace, is what Jongdae wants to argue back, but he's been down that road with Chanyeol and Baekhyun before, and nothing productive came of it. (Except maybe Jongdae learning more details about their sex life--and the variety of ways two very differently shaped people can get down and dirty in skimpy Santa costumes--than he ever needed or _wanted_ to know.)

Whether Jongdae has enough energy to bicker with his friends or not, they still know not to bother him for any favors on the day when SantaCon participants take over New York.

"Unless someone is dying or pigs fly," Jongdae reminds the pair at dinner the Friday night before, "then don't ask me to leave. Because I won't."

He's so prepared for his version of the zombie apocalypse that he has enough pot ramen to last for three whole days. His mini fridge is full of Dr. Pepper and his full-sized fridge has been filled with the latest batch of kimchi that his aunt from upstate sends every month or so to make sure "You don't lose your Korean!" (Her nagging might actually be worse than Jongdae's mom's.) Jongdae's even got a secret, not-so-secret stash of those really delicious dark chocolate peanut butter cups that he makes Kyungsoo buy whenever his friend gets groceries from Trader Joe's.

(A bag of like 6 literally costs less than a dollar, but Baekhyun always complains that Jongdae takes advantage of Kyungsoo's friendship and goodness. So Jongdae pretends not to notice when Chanyeol palms half the bag's contents to consume while they all hang out, and Baekhyun pretends like that's good enough compensation as long as Chanyeol remembers to grab him one too. They don't talk about the elephant in the room: Kyungsoo himself—because what Jongdae's friends do in their relationship is _none_ of his business. If Baekhyun wants to like two people at once, and Chanyeol doesn't care, then Jongdae certainly isn't going to comment.)

Basically, Jongdae is "Secret Bunker"-level prepared for this stupid not-holiday and after he gets home to his dorm around 11 on Friday night, he swears to his roommate, Luhan, that he's not leaving again until Sunday.

Luhan only grunts because 1) he doesn't care what Jongdae does with his weekend, 2) he's rewatching _Meteor Garden_ for the 12th time and he's _busy_ , 3) really, he just doesn't care. (And it's always a little disconcerting for Jongdae to see his pretty little roommate make such ugly sounds. Someone with a face that cute shouldn't be permitted to be gross like that.)

It's because of his bunker-level security that Jongdae has a hard time finding his phone when it vibrates loudly enough to wake him up far too early the next morning. (Because he made himself a blanket fort between his bed and his desk while Luhan looked on and Jongdae felt more safe from the evils of SantaCon with a comforter over his head. Except sometime in the night his phone had gotten lost in all the fabric and it all went from safe to smothering in about two seconds flat.)

"Make it stop," Jongdae heard Luhan half-groan, half-yell from across the room. The sound was understandably muffled through the blankets, but it was followed by a thud as Luhan threw his _own_ phone at the still fumbling Jongdae. _That_ Jongdae felt as it hit his shoulder, so when he finally did find his own cellular device, he made sure to take his sweet time turning off the vibrations.

Jongdae was pretty sure he heard a mumbled "I hate you" as he flailed about with a little more noise than necessary to dismantle his fort once he'd hung up on Baekhyun's call. (He didn't even really need to look to know that Chanyeol's boyfriend would be the only one of his three close friends without enough self-preservation to avoid Jongdae during SantaCon. So Jongdae hung up without answering for both their sakes.) But then Jongdae's phone was going off again even as he was still taking down the blankets, and Luhan rolled out of bed to grab his own phone from where he's thrown it—just to get back under his covers and throw it at Jongdae again.

"Ouch!" Was then the first thing Baekhyun heard instead of the traditional "Yoboseyo?" and Jongdae's friend chuckled loudly when he asked "Luhan?" in a way that suggested he already knew the answer and just wanted to revel a little in Jongdae's pain. (See? Devil child.)

"Shut up," Jongdae countered, hating his friend for calling. Hating Luhan for throwing his phone with surprisingly good aim,  _twice_. Hating the world for still loving Christmas and New York for supporting SantaCon and people for dressing up and being drunkards and—

"Dude. Grinch-y. Stop ranting in your head. I need your help." (Jongdae hated Baekhyun for the Grinch nickname...and for knowing Jongdae so well too.)

"What?" Jongdae practically growled into the phone. He shot a despairing glance at the big red circle on his calendar and felt the sudden urge to burst into real tears. "I'm not leaving," he reminded Baekhyun preemptively—and just in case. "You can't make me."

Chanyeol might have shouted a "You'd be surprised!" to Jongdae somewhere in the background, but Jongdae was too focused on ignoring Baekhyun's pleas to notice.

"I'm not leaving," he repeated vehemently. Baekhyun laughed. It was a scary sound that made Jongdae wonder if he'd lost the fight before it even started. "I'm not," he declared one last time, his resolve piteously weak, even to his own ears.

"It's for Soo," Baekhyun told Jongdae solemnly, placing the final straw on the proverbial pile that broke Jongdae the Camel's back.

"Ugh! Fine! Why? What? What do you want from me?"

"Dear God, Jongdae," Luhan whined, his face buried into his pillow. "Shut. Up."

Feeling properly chastised, Jongdae tried not to whimper as loudly as he _could_ have at Baekhyun's next words: "Me and Chanyeol are seducing him but we left the secret Santa gift at the dorm."

(Out of context, the words made absolutely no sense. In context...well, Jongdae was still confused.)

"I don't even know why I put up with you two," he wondered aloud to Baekhyun. Chanyeol let out a flustered "Yah!" but didn't argue because the call wasn't on speaker and Jongdae would have just drowned his voice out.

"Fear of cats," Baekhyun shared confidently. (Huh?) "And being old and alone. At the same time. Like Soo will be if you don't bring us his present before we meet him in 20 minutes."

Jongdae didn't understand why one of them couldn't go back for it while the other waited for Kyungsoo—something about we're all in this together and it's not just Baekhyun who's interested in pursuing Kyungsoo but Chanyeol, too—but he didn't try arguing for very long. Soon he was dragging himself out of bed to pull on a pair of (relatively) clean sweats and a beanie over his bed head. He grabbed his winter coat and was about to scramble down to catch the campus bus but decided at the last minute to brush his teeth and splash a little water onto his face.

(Luhan's "Oh, thank God!" became an aggravated grunt at Jongdae's about face and once again the ugliness of the sound from such a cute person disturbed Jongdae greatly.)


	2. 'Cause I'm Older Now But Not Done Hoping

He missed the bus. Jongdae missed the _freaking_ bus because he forgot to brush his teeth before bed the night before and was _not_ about to venture out in public without cleaning his mouth at least once in 12 hours. (Even though his morning breath might have been a nasty treat for any SantaCon participants he ran into. Jongdae would have enjoyed that, honestly. As it was, the only person he’d so far repulsed with it that day had been Luhan—after the Chinese boy had complained about Jongdae’s return and Jongdae had breathed quite vindictively right into his roommate’s face.) That desperate need for some modicum of cleanliness was coming back to bite Jongdae in the ass now, though, as he stood shivering at the bus stop, surrounded by the very drunken idiots he’d planned so diligently to avoid.

Life sucked. SantaCon sucked. Baekhyun sucked– (Jongdae hated himself for finishing that thought.)

Jongdae was—thankfully?—distracted from those thoughts by a trio of barely clothed elves; he wondered if they were all dating one another like his friends might soon be and reflexively clutched the gift he’d retrieved on Baekhyun’s behalf a little closer to his body. (He hoped that not every set of three humans he saw together would instantly remind him of his three friends and _whatever_ it was they had going on. Perhaps it was just a phase that Jongdae would get over once he got used to the sight of Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo being together _together_. Please, God, let it just be a phase—Jongdae didn’t want to spend any more time considering the intricate details of their sexual relationship than he needed to.)

A bus that wasn’t the university shuttle he was suffering through the cold to wait for passed by a little too closely and Jongdae barely had enough time to jump backward. He narrowly avoided hitting the poor excuse for elf women but in his conscious avoidance of their bodies, he barreled into someone else’s. The person who caught him had strong arms; Jongdae could feel his or her muscular shape even through both of their winter coats. He was probably male, though, since there was no soft cushion of a female chest pressing into Jongdae’s back and the quiet “Oof!” the stranger emitted when Jongdae tried to get away and accidentally stepped on his foot was a pleasant tenor. Jongdae wasn’t at all surprised, then, when he turned around to mutter a quick apology before just _walking_ to meet his friends, and saw a guy probably a little younger than himself standing before him.

What _was_ surprising about the person with whom Jongdae had accidentally collided was that he was covered in just about as much fabric as the three sexy (or trying to be) elves from earlier. (Maybe even less.) For one thing, the man was completely shirtless under his open coat; Jongdae was trying not to stare _too obviously_ but he thought he glimpsed a brush of dark hair trailing into the guy’s pants. (Which were actually the sorriest excuse for pants Jongdae had ever seen. Shorts might have been a better word, except they technically did go all the way from the other man’s waist to his ankles. There just also happened to be long slits on both of the outside seams which bared much of the man’s legs to the world.) He had something like a Chippendales bowtie around his neck, too, only it was more like a choker or a collar with a jingling bow attached at the center. Jongdae, who’d been trailing his eyes down from the hair on the man’s abdomen and then back up slowly to the man’s face, gulped at the sight. The outfit was made complete with a pair of antlers attached precariously to a bright red headband that matched the spot of red on the tip of the man’s nose.

(Sexy, stripper Rudolph, Jongdae surmised. He couldn’t handle this; clearly the world hated him.)

“Sorry,” he barely managed to squeak out. Jongdae was studiously avoiding the stranger’s, well, _everything_ , as he apologized, and apparently he was pretty obvious about it because the guy actually called him out for it. (The nerve.)

“Don’t apologies usually involve eye contact?” The stranger asked. Jongdae met his eyes then, and instantly regretted it. Even in New York, all of Jongdae’s friends were Korean, like him, and all of them had brown eyes, like him, but he’d still never seen eyes like this guy’s before. He was Asian too, as it turned out, but his gaze was like molten hot chocolate with whipped cream and crushed peppermint candy on top—exactly how Jongdae’s mom made it for him whenever he went back to Seoul for Christmas.

“Sorry,” he said again, swallowing hard against the sudden longing he felt for home. Strangers weren’t supposed to make him feel like this, especially not ones who so _clearly_ enjoyed Jongdae’s least favorite holiday/non-holiday of the year. The man just shrugged, seemingly appeased, so Jongdae offered a final “Sorry” as he walked away, glad the encounter was over.

He was so ready to complete this stupid delivery and get back home. The kimchi was sounding particularly delicious right about then; it’s what Jongdae imagined he was tasting when he passed a long line outside a bar a few doors down from the bus stop and some girl tripped the contents of her beer mug onto Jongdae’s face and into his hair. He caught a glimpse of the shuttle driving by as he tried using his soaked scarf to wipe the sticky alcohol off his face before it could dry, and that was it for Jongdae. Completely defeated by SantaCon, Jongdae sunk to his knees on the disgusting, cold, beer-covered sidewalk; the future of Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo’s relationship would have to go on without him because he just couldn’t deal anymore, not today.

Jongdae was more than prepared to wallow on his knees until he felt better, so he wasn’t ready for familiarly strong arms to lift him off the ground, pulling Jongdae into his bare chest for the second time that day. Jongdae practically squawked at the invasion of his personal space, but was soon thankful when a large group of freshmen Jongdae recognized from when he’d helped out with orientation stampeded past. They were heading for the same line that had given Jongdae his beer shower and would have happily run him over in their eagerness if the other man hadn’t been so quick to move him.

“I get that you like my arms around you,” Chippendales Rudolph joked, his face contorting into a smile that looked out of place for some reason. (It seemed like the man didn’t often find things amusing. Jongdae disliked people like that. Life was a gift—except for the one day a year of SantaCon—why not appreciate it?) “But risking your life for a back hug twice in five minutes seems a little much.” He grinned at Jongdae more comfortably this time and winked. “You could have just asked.”

Jongdae groaned. Why was the stripper boy so freaking cute? Jongdae didn’t want anything to do with SantaCon—didn’t want to _like_ anyone that had anything to do with SantaCon—but Rudolph here was doing a pretty good job of changing that. (And singlehandedly in the face of more than one recent, SantaCon-related, unfortunate event, too.)

“I’m Sehun,” Rudolph introduced himself after a long beat during which time he’d clearly expected Jongdae to respond to his flirting in kind, but didn’t seem too put out when Jongdae said nothing. “Get a drink with me?”

Shaking his head vehemently, Jongdae caught a flicker of disappointment in Sehun’s confident expression. He gestured first to the curling lines of wasted people outside every bar on the block, and then to where the cold beer was flattening his hair into unattractive clumps. “Not today, at least,” Jongdae amended. _That_ made Sehun grin so broadly that his eyes crinkled at the edges and the touch of red on his nose practically glowed. (Or maybe Jongdae was imagining things? Regardless, the idea fit with Sehun’s Rudolph costume, so Jongdae wasn’t going to dwell on that.)

"I'm Jongdae." He grinned too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is finished because:
> 
> 1\. I like open-ended things.  
> 2\. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo don't really need help getting together.  
> 3\. It's more fun to imagine...Don't you think? ;)


End file.
